News Archive | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Researchers Gain Insight Into Organic Solar Cell Efficiency

Research from North Carolina State University reveals that organic solar cell efficiency is based upon a delicate balance between the size and purity of the interior layers, or domains. These findings may lead to better designs and improved performance in organic solar cells.

Generations of Supercomputers Pin Down Primordial Plasma

As one groundbreaking IBM system retires, a new Blue Gene supercomputer comes online at Brookhaven Lab to help precisely model subatomic interactions.

Bionic Plants

Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers.

A New Angle on Controlling Light

MIT researchers have produced a system that allows light of any color to pass through only if it is coming from one specific angle; the technique reflects all light coming from other directions. This new approach could ultimately lead to advances in solar photovoltaics, detectors for telescopes and microscopes, and privacy filters for display screens.

Human-Induced Climate Change Reduces Chance of Flooding in Okavango Delta

Researchers at the University of Cape Town, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the United Nations Development Programme have analyzed how human-induced climate change has affected recent flooding in an ecologically and geographically unique river basin in southern Africa—the Okavango River.

Titan Project Explores the Smallest Building Blocks of Matter

A team from Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Virginia is working to deepen our understanding of quarks, enlisting the help of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan supercomputer.

Bacteria That Produces a Rocket-Powering Biofuel Developed by Scientists at Georgia Tech.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered a bacterium to synthesize pinene, a hydrocarbon produced by trees that could potentially replace high-energy fuels, such as JP-10, in missiles and other aerospace applications.

Saving the Sunshine for Night: Solar Fuels From Artificial Photosynthesis

Direct visible light water splitting in a dye-sensitized photoelectrosynthesis cell makes hydrogen for energy storage.

Lawrence Livermore Scientists Discover Bacterial Resistance to Improve Biofuel Production

Lawrence Livermore researchers discovered a resistance mechanism in a rainforest soil bacterium that enables E. coli to grow and produce biofuel in the presence of ionic liquids at levels that otherwise would be toxic to native strains.

Scientists Track 3D Nanoscale Changes in Rechargeable Battery Material During Operation

First 3D nanoscale observations of microstructural degradation during charge-discharge cycles could point to new ways to engineer battery electrode materials for better performance.

Discussion of the President’s FY 2015 Budget Request for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science

Statement by Patricia Dehmer, Acting Director of the Office of Science, before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy & Water Development.

Shifting Evolution into Reverse Promises Cheaper, Greener Way to Make New Drugs

Alternative approach to creating artificial organic molecules, called bioretrosynthesis, was first proposed four years ago by Brian Bachmann, associate professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt University.